Tata Steel signs MoU with TERI for Green School Project in Odisha, Jharkhand

New Delhi: Tata Steel has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) for the second phase of Green School project in Jharkhand and Odisha.

Under the MoU, the Green School Project will focus to engage the school fraternity in taking actions to achieve viable environmental impacts in and around the school campus with focus on water and energy issues.

It will also create awareness among students on climate change and the ways sustainable lifestyle can help mitigate the adverse impact of climate change. This will be achieved by promoting environmental stewardship through both classroom and outdoor activities to improve their critical, interdisciplinary and holistic thinking.

The MoU was signed by Dr Ajay Mathur, DG, TERI and Mr Chanakya Chaudhary, VP, Raw Materials, Tata Steel, in New Delhi today. Dr Annapurna Vancheswaran, Senior Director, TERI and Ms Neha from TERI along with a host of Tata Steel executives were also present on the occasion.

“Tata Steel is committed to creating a holistic sustainable environment. With this initiative, we want to make students aware on environmental conservation and motivate them to pursue sustainable practices in their day to day life. With the success of phase I implementation in 10 schools, we are glad to take this initiative to 20 additional schools and sensitize the students and teachers on environment and encourage them to undertake concrete green actions,” said Mr Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Raw Materials, Tata Steel.

“We are glad to have begun Green School Project with support of Tata Steel and making a difference in lifestyle of students towards environment. One of the things that need to be focused upon is to accelerate action in sustainability, not only in the sphere of technology & finance, but by ‘catching them young’ through the Green School Project. This is something that we greatly value and is a huge opportunity of enhancing our impact to the remote locations of the country,” said Dr Ajay Mathur, DG, TERI.

After the successful completion of Phase I of the project, Phase II will be implemented in 30 schools across Jajpur, Jharia, Joda, Noamundi, Sukinda and West Bokaro. Since the inception of the project, more than 2,700 students were impacted and 66 teachers were trained on environment changes and sustainability.

The second phase of the project will help in empowering the next generation through education, project-based learning and community service. The students will be engaged to develop sustainable solutions for environment within school and in their immediate neighbourhood that will subsequently result in establishing resource-efficient schools.